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Author's Photo: Sumter Utilities Waiting for Assignment

The power just came on at 4 PM this afternoon. I don't know whom to thank. I met a crew from Longmont Texas, yelled thanks to one from New Hampshire, and saw a phalanx of trucks from Sumter Utilities (South Carolina) at the local mall, ready for action. There were Alabamans in town as well, and probably representatives from another 20 states, all helping the local crews from National Grid. The Texas crew said this time they were lucky - they slept in a hotel. For the five days during Hurricane Sandy, their truck was their bed.

It will be good to have a warm shower. It's funny how much colder a cold shower is in the winter, when your house is barely above 50 degrees. That's all the wood stove can do by way of heat, so one is grateful for it.

The power went out Friday around midnight after a large green lightning flash in the driving snow that plunged us into darkness. We are a mile away from the ocean, but can see (and hear it) it outside the window on a nice day. All night the gusts of wind - that reached up to 75 mph - battered the house. Morning came and the wind was still howling, but probably only 40 mph. So I thought it would be a good time to dress like a skier - googles, ski hat, ski pants and jacket, gloves - and head to the beach. On the main street near our house, a very large maple tree had snapped in half and was festooned with power lines, blocking half the road. There were many more such sights.

Author's Photo: Scituate, MA

The houses on the way down to the harbor looked like they were entirely covered with that fake snow spray you can buy at Walmart. As I reached the harbor, the second high tide (we had a new moon) of the storm had surged across the parking lot, and there were waves in it lapping at the base of the harbormaster's and our local movie theater. The awning from an outdoor bar was on the wrong side of the street, close to a huge tree ripped up at the roots. Further down the street, a town worker in a bulldozer was running the blade of his machine through the water at the corner next to the bank and the Catholic church, creating a bow wave that drove the water back across the parking lot and into the harbor.

I decided to press on, though it was cold enough in the driving wind that I had to keep my ski goggles on and cover my face, and see if I could cross the flooded causeway out to the ocean and Second Cliff. I met two other men and we decided to

Author's Photo: Parking Lot & Harbormaster Bldg, Scituate, MA

cross the causeway together. The road was flooded, but the snowdrifts on the sides were frozen, so we crossed out towards the ocean. We reached the other side of the causeway, where one man was shoveling out his mailbox, moving snow and rocks that had been thrown up by the storm onto his street and yard. I asked him how the night had been. Not fun, he said. He might have tried to evacuate, but for his 85 year old mother. Instead, he huddled up in the corner of the house and waited out the shrieking winds til morning light arrived. There was a lot of water around the house, and when I observed more closely, I saw that the water was pouring out of his basement windows.

Further down the road, the snow turned to grass where the salt water had driven over the seawall. One yard had a gully in it. And a wire lobster trap. I then made my way back through town with the intention of checking out the area by the lighthouse. No go. Too much water flooding the street by the yacht club. Time to slog home. There were downed power lines everywhere, and broken trees.

Author's Photo: Scituate, MA

The next morning, the storm was gone, the power was still out, but we were treated to 32 degrees, sunshine, and a bluebird sky. My wife and I walked down to the Scituate lighthouse on Cedar Point. This area of town was unrecognizable. Sand covered the first few hundred yards of the road, giving way to cobbles, and eventually large boulders. Some were the size of a sea chest, somehow thrown over the seawalls during the height of the storm.

One man on the harbor side (rather than facing the ocean) told me that he had had two large timbers floating in his yard, and with each surge of the waves in the harbor, the timbers threatened to punch a hole in his house, or rip the gas feed from the wall. So for 45 minutes he essentially fought the timber off. Each time it got close with the surge, he would push it back into the deeper water.

Author's Photo: Scituate, MA

A yellow kayak sat loose on the riprap on the other side of his lawn. I wondered where it had come from. Five minutes later, a woman told me that same kayak had been bumping into her kitchen window the previous morning at high tide. That's when she had thought about evacuating, but by then there was no way out - the entire peninsula was cut off by surging flood water.

"Did you think of evacuating before the storm?" "No, we've lived here for thirty years and ridden out every one."

In business, you can be fooled by a series of successes into thinking you know the answer. If you guess wrong, you can go bankrupt. Living on the ocean, success can blind you as well. You've lived through The Perfect Storm, Hurricane Irene, and Sandy. You always guessed right and you came out OK. But imagine one time in the middle of a terrifying winter storm, you misjudge. You pay too little heed to the breathless warnings of the local weather forecasters, and you decide you will ride this storm out too.

Author's Photo: Scituate, MA

Years ago, I ran into a former classmate who lived on the beach during the Perfect Storm, and she stayed in her house til 2 in the morning when her brother hammered on her door and told her to grab her coat and run. She told me that just then, a wave smashed in the front door and went right through the house and out the back. She got out just in time. A few days later, driving over the local bridge, she saw her black lacquered Chinese dressed in the marsh, with the feet sticking up. It was the only remnant of her possessions.

So if you guess wrong, if the seawall collapses, or a wave smashes your home, or if the house next door catches fire 15 feet away and 70 mile-per-hour winds drive the flames to your house, and to the house next to you, you may have a problem. Then terrified, you grab your coat and mittens and step out into waste deep ocean water and shrieking gale force winds in 20 degree weather, with needles of ice piercing the skin on your face. You have no hope of rescue services. No phone. No 911. And they couldn't get here even if they knew you were in trouble. If you guess wrong just once, the payment might be very high indeed...